Let the Gullible Beware : ‘Candid Camera’ is Back With a Vengeance

No one in the Tuesday morning crowd at the Universal Studios theme park seemed to notice the thick bundle of wires running from the exit turnstiles into the guest relations office. Everyone was too busy buying hot dogs, chasing their kids, trying to find their way to the King Kong banana-breath thrill ride.

So they paid no attention to the 8-inch microphone hanging down from the awning above the sign that read “No Re-Entry Without Handstamp.” They didn’t give a thought to the small portable kiosk, covered with movie posters except for one prominent panel that was made of dark, reflective glass. It never occurred to them that inside the kiosk, on the other side of that glass, there might be a man with a video camera. They didn’t notice that on top of the kiosk was a small moving cylinder the size of a small flashlight. Another camera. Remote-controlled.

The cameras were focused on the only exit gate where visitors could re-enter the park, where an employee in a baseball cap, khaki shorts and a Universal Studios T-shirt was stationed to stamp people’s hands. But instead of the usual rubber stamp, this employee had a pan of blue paint and a roller. And in his ear, practically invisible, was a tiny audio receiver.

“Someone’s coming,” said Randy Bennett, the “Candid Camera” actor, pretending to be a Universal employee, conversing with voices that only he could hear. “I think we might have one.”

“OK, Randy,” said the voice in his ear. “Just paint the back of his hand to begin with. Don’t paint any arms just yet.”

The voice was coming from inside the guest relations office, from a room normally used as a first-aid station. The “Candid Camera” production crew had strewn monitors and microphones, soundboards and cases of equipment among the cots, blankets, bandages and gauze. Director Rac Clark watched the monitors (one for each hidden camera) as the first unsuspecting tourist approached. “Roll tape,” he said to the cameraman inside the kiosk.

A man in his mid-40s approached the gate and, when asked, passively offered his arm, quietly acquiescing as Bennett calmly and deliberately covered the man’s hand with blue paint.

“Good one, Randy,” Clark said, still laughing. “I can tell this is going to work just fine.”

And it did. All morning, people stopped, smiled and let Bennett paint them blue. A few gave startled looks. A few asked if the stuff was washable. But most just accepted their fate, willing to do whatever they were told. One English couple patiently waited as Bennett painted not only their hands but their arms, their shoulders and the man’s open-shirted chest.

“Well, we’re on holiday,” Dennis Newman explained, asked why he had allowed a perfect stranger to cover his body with paint. “We thought maybe we were the millionth customer or something.”

When they moved on, a production assistant was waiting with a clipboard and a release form, a piece of paper granting permission to broadcast their images “in perpetuity throughout the world.” In return they were given a Candid Camera coin (described in the release as “a good and valuable consideration”) and directions to the washroom.

“There’s a bald guy coming,” Clark was saying into the microphone, even as the Newmans were cleaning up. “Do you think we should paint his head?”

Let this be a warning to you. Just in case you’ve been asleep at the wheel and haven’t noticed the billboards and the bus posters and the shtick-eating grin pictures of Dom DeLuise plastered all over town, you need to be alerted that “Candid Camera” is back in business. So be very careful about doing goofy things in public places. Don’t talk to mailboxes, or wrestle with vending machines. Don’t make faces in restroom mirrors or take betting tips from talking racehorses. In fact, just to be safe, you probably should stop drinking milk from the carton or watching TV in your underwear. These guys are everywhere.

“We’ve got 11 crews out working full time, going all over the country, said Erni DiMassa Jr., the show’s supervising producer. “We’ve already shot in 60 cities in 38 states, and that was just the first wave. At any given moment, there’s probably somebody shooting a ‘Candid Camera’ segment somewhere in America.”

In Spokane they had people chasing a runaway floor polisher. In Kansas City they filmed people’s reactions as an actress’s dress was torn off by an absent-minded bellhop. In Detroit, an actor in a bait shop ate fake worms. And on the same day people were being painted at Universal Studios, another crew was in Burbank, where temporary office workers found themselves having to repeat, into a telephone, nonsense jungle noises being made by comedian Charlie Callas.

“OK, now we hear the sound of the rare African dik-dik bird,” Callas would say. “Eeeeyah. Eeeyah.”

“Eeeyah. Eeeyah,” repeated Karen Johnson, who had moved to L.A. from Iowa only a month before. “Will I be getting a raise for doing this?”

The “Candid Camera” crews are churning out material at a pace Allen Funt could never have imagined when he created the show (originally on radio as “Candid Microphone”) in 1946. For 32 years, Funt’s various incarnations of “Candid Camera” (the last syndicated version left the air in 1978) aired once a week; they were leisurely paced programs that sometimes only featured two or three bits in a half-hour show.

Not only does the new version air five nights a week but, DiMassa said, audiences have a much shorter attention span. “Everything in television now is a lot quicker,” he said. “We try to use 6 or 7 bits per show, including one classic from the original library. And none of those bits ever run more than one or two minutes. That means we have to have a lot more material.”

Crews, on average, only shoot one gag per day. Which means that eight hours of setting up, filming and waiting around in cramped spaces is only likely to yield a minute or two of usable tape. And sometimes, less than that.

“Absolutely,” DiMassa said. “We have days that are total washouts, either because the gag doesn’t work or the people don’t react.”

The other big change is technology. Today’s crews have access to cameras no larger than a marking pen, not to mention wireless microphones. When Funt (who serves as a consultant to the new version) began, he had to carry a wire recorder in a 40-pound suitcase. “Which meant that to get you to talk, he had to chase you around with the suitcase,” DiMassa said.

“In the end, the technology doesn’t matter,” Charlie Callas was saying, taking a break from making bird noises. Callas did bits for Funt in the ‘60s and says the basics of the show haven’t changed.

“If the setup isn’t good and the people aren’t funny, you could have the greatest technology in the world and the bit would still bomb,” Callas said. “It still comes down to the people themselves. That will never change.”

“Candid Camera” is seen weeknights at 7:30 on KABC Channel 7.